Those In the Know: Super Drill Panic

There's an old adage that you should stick to what you're good at. That's why when a good game comes out reviewers will often look at the developers pedigree.
There is nothing worse than some fly by night programmer wannabe that has no love nor understanding for videogames clogging up the market with his soulless products.
It's not often that Gametrender will deviate from it's usual informed and educated perspective to absolutely say how Earth shatteringly brilliant a single game is. Well ladies and gentlemen this is one of those occasions!
Orange Pixel is the developer in question and their love of gaming and sense of fun exudes from every pore of their new game " Super Drill Panic  ". Taking the simple template of the vertical runner genre, you know the type, where an object/character drops onto different platforms and is steered left and right while the screen slowly descends, if the screen catches up it's game over.
Well this is where Orange Pixels' game stands out. Firstly there is a story behind it, with an adventurer crashing in the jungle and blundering through hidden temples in pursuit of treasure. The gameplay is also spot on, with no glitches and also some great retro inspired graphics.
The point where the game starts to become better then it's peers is when you realise that there is more than one level and even a shop to buy upgrades such as run faster boots. Then to make it even better there are great unlockable extras like arcade mode and even a whole new character and story!
But what really shone out for me was the games personality which shows how the developers actually care intimately about games. The little touch of the character dropping references to classic past titles like Paperboy and Rick Dangerous it's not only hilarious but also filled me with nostalgia and made me realise what a great heritage games have.
Orange Pixel, games by gamers for gamers, and that makes all the difference! 

What Gaming forums can teach us.

Here at Gametrender one thing we know is our Android games, it's our bed and butter and day to day business. However when we started to explore the forums we were in for a pleasant surprise. Obsessed with new, better, more and the fact that new games come out at such a ridiculous pace means that so many great games become swamped under the deluge of titles that arrive on a seemingly second to second basis. The Android market its often criticised for its lack of filtering and search unfriendliness so it becomes so hard to find what we might enjoy. In the name of Research gametrender recently set off to explore some of the wilder reaches of the internet. It reminded us very much of a certain locale in Hyde Park, London. In the park is an area called Speakers Corner, here on a small raised platform anybody can climb up, whenever they wish and harangue the crowds with their opinion, whatever it may be. Well the forums, and there are many hundreds of them are just like this with everybody having their own personal soapbox to climb aboard and shout from. However from a gamers perspective they are pure gaming gold. All the little hidden gems that we might have missed can be found there, whether the forumites opinion on what is or is not a good game is irrelevant, as the android market is so happily filled with freeware that once you've got a games name you're only seconds away from having it on your phone. That's why I've found and enjoyed obscure titles like Wordwrench, Barr, Buka and Trapped. Very likely those are games that for me would have been buried forever in the markets vaults, but a little but of digging has led to some great, and free, fun. Just remember though in the fast paced gaming world that amateur opinions are great but Gametrender will always be there to provide you the customised service that you need to find the best games and apps that suit you. android games

That's what we're talking about!-Amazon Mechanical turk

While computing technology continues to improve, there are still many things that human beings can do much more effectively than computers, such as identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings or researching data details. Traditionally, tasks like this have been accomplished by hiring a large temporary workforce (which is time consuming, expensive and difficult to scale) or have gone undone.

The text above was lifted straight from the Amazon Mechanical turk website. I'm not going to plug their service but the reason I've quoted them above is that they're singing off the same song sheet as Gametrender.

How is a multi million pound website having the same ideas as my humble internet startup you ask? Well simply the fact that they agree that the human touch is still the best when it comes to some things. What does Gametrender do? It uses real humans to recommend apps to real humans, so Mechanical Turk go and get your own concepts!

Best Android games 2011

What Android apps are hot so far ? By no means a definitive list, but a good starting point to explore the best games for  Android 2011. These are some of the standout games so far: Diversion, Gun Bros, Burn the Rope,  Starfront Collision, Rainbow Six Hd, Backstab, Robotek, Baseball Superstars, Battlestar, Eternity Warriors, Zenonia 3 . Look forward to elaborations in future posts as to why these are so highly regarded. The Android market moves fast though so expect this post to be a work in progress with lots of future updates when more Android games come out. android games

Apps for children and adults

What  constitutes fun? Here we go with another post that attempts to put some order into the game world but psychologising what makes gaming fun. For those talented developers out there feel free to borrow any noteworthy comments to inspire any hit games of tomorrow.
Here at Gametrender we're always on the look out for inspiration for the games industry. Having a young child is proving to be a constant source of innovation and encouragement. Don't worry this not going to be a schmaltzy article about parenthood etc., however watching my child at play I've found very useful from a game development perspective .
Toddler play particularly is quite useful to observe as they have progressed beyond baby play which is formless and moment orientated just involving colours, sounds and stimuli, but is something closer to adult play with rules and concepts starting to be imbued into the game.
Where childs play has advantages over adult play is that there are far fewer preconceived notions of what makes a game good or bad, dull or entertaining. Adult play is very obsessed with win states. A football match is played with the express purpose of winning. That us not to say that a player won't still enjoy the game, but losing will certainly detract from that enjoyment.
A child will spend hours, a notable achievement with a supposedly limited attention span, playing randomly with no end state, no win or lose state in mind. Careful observation of this play will show that it does have it's own set of rules. It's not random free form play but is definitely rule based plat.
A child with a toy car will ,if he or she has seen a real car before, and we can assume they have if they are playing with a toy one, pretend that what they have is a real car. The car will not fly, it will not be an extra dimensional portal. It will in all essence be a car and have behaviour expected of a car. Adults will drive a real car for miles just for the sheer thrill of driving, a child will play with their toy car with this same purpose, the thrill of play, movement, without artificial constraints. The rules are certainly there but are more organic, natural rules and not imaginary, even arbitrary rules imposed on the toyset ultimately inhibiting play.
As a case example lets consider the real life situation of a child playing with a wooden trainset. It is a wooden train set with a wooden track that slots together. There are right ways to do it, hence the instructions, but there are numerous other ways that the tracks slot together. Theres a bridge too, and assorted wooden trees , animals and a wooden police station, fire station and hospital.
The child or more likely the parent
puts the track together , the various furniture is placed randomly and the child plays. So why is this fun and where do the rules come into it. Firstly all the rules aren't just self imposed, natural laws of course apply, if the train goes too fast it will fall off the track, if it's on top of the bridge it will roll down hill. That's physics!
All the rest is imposed by the nature of the play, it's a train so it goes on a track, it doesn't fly and so on. Like the real world animals and people can be on the track. Accidents will result in a visit to the hospital or firehouse. What games to play: how fast the train is, how big an accident, what about passengers? The point that this illustrates is that with  play like this natural rules will fall into place, other rules can later be imposed but all they are doing is building on the template of the original, purest and best form of the game. I think that Elf Farm try to encapsulate this sense of wonder and carefree child's play in their games and are well worth checking out if this article has struck a chord.

Best Alternative Android Keyboards

With all the typing,websurfing and emails flying out from our Android phone a good Android keyboard is essential.
SWYPE is one of the best Android keyboards . One of the best things about an Android phone is it's ability to be customised, so when there is a better way to do things you can be sure that we can find one on the market.
SWYPE is a new type of Android keyboard that is becoming highly popular, so much so that manufacturers of new phones are starting to bring it out as standard software.
I do a lot of blogging straight from my phone, in fact this very post is being written via phone using Swype! What makes it great is that instead of tip tapping away for hours you can type out entire words without lifting your finger from the keyboard.
It's very clever and highly intuitive. Use it and it will seem almost magical as your clumsy keyboard swypes actually resolve themselves into legible messages. The keyboard learns too, with a clever top bar giving you choices of words when it's not quite sure what you want. Generally it's very intuitive though and messages can be swyped out in a fraction of the time of traditional keyboards.
It's not all rosy though as the keyboard does seem to be memory intensive and need a faster phone to work well. Also it can't be found on the Android market and needs to be downloaded(for free), from the Swype website.

Happy Swyping! <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/android" rel="tag"><img style="border:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-left:.4em" src="http://scm-l3.technorati.com/static/img/pub/icon-utag-16x13.png?tag=android" alt=" " />android</a>

Crazy app downloads:Why did I do that?

Have you every looked on another persons phone? Not their messages or voicemail but actually what apps they have downloaded? It can be a very illuminating and sometimes downright scary experience. At a barbecue this past weekend it was getting to that time of night when most if not all conversations were exhausted and people were starting to deploy their smartphones enmasse. Another observation of the smartphone generation is that in one way they are very similar to baby boomers of a previous generation. It's never uncommon at parties of a certain age group for those with babies to trot them out and expect coos and aahs and suchlike from their captive audience. Well the smart phones who are infant less have found a way to retaliate! They bring out their phones, only of course if they are new and shiny enough not to be an embarrassment (the equivalent of a baby with a scary looking rash?) and like the other unlucky bloke across the room being regaled with baby stories the smartphoner feels obliged to show you what apps are on their phones. Well at this particular barbecue thankfully all the infants had been put to sleep leaving me at the mercy of a smartphoner. That is why at one in the morning I found myself being bored to death by a man smashing virtual bottles and being equally mystified as to why a thirty something year old would be deriving so much satisfaction from a talking, farting, drinking dog that you can beat up! On a positive note I was shown Sniper which is now on my to download list. It also made me realise how good the Gametrender concept actually is. Log onto gametrender.webs.com and you too could be having your own particular irritating app, drunk or sober, to bite or entertain with as you please. android games

Android apps for all occasions: Happy Annibirthday

The first time I saw it happen was on  Everquest, real world holidays started to be celebrated, Christmas being one of them, with snow, a virtual Santa and present giving occurring, all of course with a fantasy theme. Gaming has of course moved on since then, especially into the mobile realm. Many games now try to gather interest by having different editions for different occasions. Angry Birds does this particularly well with their  Angry Birds Seasons for Iphone and Android. Halloween, Christmas and even Saint Patricks Day celebrations are themes in the game. It serves to make the game more immediately relevant and thus more interesting. Games for different occasions are definitely something that needs to be explored more, for example why can’t games give out special bonuses or prizes on the phone owners birthday. Should relevant newsworthy events be reflected in game updates, particularly story driven games? Also how much of a thought is given to the user interface of games, surely a game designed to be played on a morning commute should have controls designed around it. What about queues? Gamers often while away their time in long queues by playing games, do the developers tailor their user interfaces to reflect this? Apart from seasonal, holiday and event orientated gaming developers must become aware and savvy to the different types of situations their games are likely to be played in and design them with that in mind. Remember developers mobile games aren’t just for indoors on the couch: they are ubiquitous, ever present multi contextual commodities that can be played anywhere from thirty seconds to hours and for a gamer to get the most from their game these insights should help inform design. gametrender@googlemail.com

Our Partners in the Android Market

As Gametrender continues to expand we are starting to do some valuable work with a number of Android developers. In this part of our blog we we'll feature some of the games and details of those we work with. These aren't intended to be in depth profiles or game reviews , but just to give you our reader an insight into the world of development and those behind the future hits of tomorrow.

Android RPG :Zenonia 2

Riding high in the charts Zenonia 2 the hit RPG game for Android and Iphone has some big tricks up its sleeve. Hiding behind some cutesy last gen graphics it presents a solid role playing game with an ever expanding feature facet and it is remarkable that this RPG is on Smartphones! I’m not reviewing it here but just opening up to debate some very intriguing concepts that it brings up. I’m only about an hour into the game but its starting to throw up some hints about innovation which is increasingly rare to find these days. As I get further into the storyline behind the Zenonia 2 RPG I’ll explore these features more but at the moment it’s just the cleverness behind them that fascinates me. I haven’t even tried the features yet but as soon as I’m close to a wifi network I’ll be checking out the network features. Whats good about the pvp and messaging capabilities is that they form a seamless part of the game and not some front end menu feature. For instance the Arena is just there in the first town you come to, as is a phone box type message hub. No show, no fireworks and most importantly total integration into the game environment. Like I said I haven’t even used the features yet, but just had to write about the mere fact of their cleverness. Heres a developer who understands that we game on phones so such seamless use of phone type features such as phone messaging and always on smartphone connectivity is a massively innovative coup. I’ve a strong feeling that I’ll be writing a lot more about this game in the future as I Explore these and it’s more traditional gaming environment. It’s not hard to see why it’s consistently in the top android charts, not just as a top mobile RPG but as a superb Android and Iphone game in any category

Some unusual App Marketing Strategies

Gathering interest by releasing your app initially on a higher spec phone seems to be a new and unusual app marketing strategy for some Android  publishers.
That the Android market is fragmented is a phrase often bandied about by the Smartphone industry. What they mean by this is that due to the plethora of phones of differing types running Android, all the different specs of these phones and indeed the different versions of Android (Android Gingerbread OS quicly being superceded by Ice-Cream Sandwich and even that looking to be made extinct b a rumoured new Android Update in the form of the rumoured Jellybean Android OS) it makes it very hard for every app developer to be singing off of the same song sheet as it were.

 Some app developers have used this fact to improve their app marketing: thinking particularly of the Tegra chipped Android  phones and the Xperia Play, these are generally high specced gaming phones (boasting as standard 1 GHZ plus phone processors and dual cores).
But more importantly these are Android handsets that are also highly marketed. So if a new game comes out on these or similar phones the internet is normally all over it and it becomes biggish news for at least a little while.
So whilst anybody who has more than a passing interest in gaming will see this so called gaming news on the net as an Xperia Play or similar exclusive their need for the game will naturally grow, according to the age old principle of ” You want what you can’t have!” Thus when the Android game has benefited from it’s so called exclusivity based marketing and is released to other phone owners it is more likely to be purchased.
 Clever marketeers use this app marketing strategy and prove that Android's fragmentation can indeed be a strength and not a weaknesses.

Best Android Developers

Android games have burst onto the gaming scene in a big way and some Android game developers are makning a very big name for themselves.
As more and more money gets ploughed into the Android  app gaming industry a couple of big names are beginning to emerge. I deliberately have not researched this article and have just let my average days gaming bring a couple of names to the forefront. The idea being to download what I want and what has been recommended as a top game, free game or paid game., from the market and then see which Android developer's are making a splash. Are these the app gaming industries big players, maybe, maybe not but what they are is names that have stuck in my head from just playing around.
So it makes sense that what they are creating is making it through to the average gamer. Rovio is obviously up there as one of the biggest mobile developers, just on the strength of its Angry Birds franchise.
 Playing on an Xperia play you can’t but help see Gameloft products all over the place, essentially gameloft games are just a rehash of best selling game like Tomb Raider adapted for the Android market ( Play Gameloft's 'Backstab' and you'll see what I mean).
 Hyperbees is also a prolific dev of quality Smartphone games and  one that also springs to mind at the moment. Of note is that Ea ( the Xperia Play version of Deadspace and Need for Speed Most Wanted are worth a look) is also joining the party, clearly gamings biggest publisher wants a slice of mobile gaming pie.
Thats all I’m going to mention, deliberately like I say I only wanted to list from memory as for Android gaming right at the moment these stand out the most. As an Android gamer who do you think should be included in this list?

Game Psychology: Reasons behind Angry Bird's Success

Going back to my previous Angry Birds posting I hinted that they might be other deeper factors behind the games infiltration into our lives. Stand by for this one: anthropomorphism. What !you say. Ap for short, Im not going to keep typing that out in full, is the psychological process whereby humans give emotions and human attributes to non human objects or creatures. Whether deliberately or by design Rovio have managed to master this with their creation. Each angry bird is distinctive, angry eyebrows and glaring eyes showing us their righteous avian fury. incensed tweets worthy of a blood thirty mob. The pigs too take on human characteristics their every oink seeming to be a middle finger pulled up at the birds. Their shifty eyes ,and on some crazy mustaches, making them seem to be villains. So AP delicately applied to make the birds and their foes seem human and thus stick in our minds more. Perhaps its this more than the top notch game play that has made Angry Birds such a hit. Read more about Game Psychology

android games

It's all about the publicity

Gametrender is branching out. It's sad to see that there are so many good ideas for apps out there that are let down by the language barrier. So because here at Gametrender we're good all around nice guys(and we love the publicity!) we've been contacting developers who to put it bluntly, need help with their English and have been offered to improve their app translations and scripts. Here's the email that we've been sending out.
Dear Developer
I am the owner of the "Gametrender" blog and website. As part of our marketing strategy we are offering app dialogue script optimisation to any interested developers.
As a consumer and trender of apps I am very conscious how poor translation can have a negative affect on the enjoyment of games and apps. Particularly in relation to story based games. We are not offering to translate your app , as of course this has already been done. However, what we will do is enhance the translation of your app. Your app will be more professional, more accessible and more enjoyable to the end user. If you feel that your app dialogue has been poorly translated or that it could be enhanced, then we would like you to take advantage of this offer.
This is completely free and of no obligation. The reason behind this is that it is part of our marketing strategy. Gametrender is a brand new start up website that recommends apps to customers. By offering you this translation optimisation service we aim to get our name known and perhaps even expand into script writing and optimisation through our website. If you do use this service all we ask is that you recommend us to other developers and help to get our name known throughout the community.
 We have also had a lot of interest recently in fixing the front end descriptions on the Android market, which of course we are quite happy to do too.
The script optimisation will be performed by a native English speaker who holds a degree in English and a postgraduate degree in Education. Additionally he has over three years experience as an English teacher.
If you wish to use our free service then please email us at this address. Alternatively feel free to browse our Gametrender Wordpress blog and our provisional website: gametrender.webs.com .
Thank you for your time and all the best with your current and forthcoming developments.
Yours faithfully
Gametrender
Over the next couple of posts we'll let you know how that goes down with the development community.

Calling all developers (and Gamers and anybody else really!)

Gametrender always plans to bring you the latest and best apps. However as part of a marketing drive we've been closely working with a number of non-English developers. We thought that it was such a pity that many apps are inaccesible, ir virtually so due to really poor translations. So rather than just complaing about this we went and did something about it. A week later and we are pleased to say that we have not only helped translate the market description for a number of apps but have even joined forces with a Brazilian developer to bring a Hangman app to market. Well if you're a foreign developer looking to fix your translations into proper English or even a gamer who knows of an app that could benefit from this then let us know. We're always happy to bring gamers the games they want-by any means possible!

Here's the  Android market link for our pet project 'Hangman Mania' optimised from the original Portugese.


Developers we've helped to optimise their apps are: kidga.com;http://www.ferreiradevelopment.com/ and the RTS Android Developer Central Bytes

So there you have it , the future is bright the future is GAMETRENDER

Hangman Mania

android games

Angry Birds Updates and more

Apparently if youre a blog about video games you have to write at least one article about virtual Avian phenomenon Angry Birds to keep your blogging license. So what makes a simple app so huge that it has a million plus downloads, its own range of plush toys and a movie inspired by it? Firstly its got to be said even though I, along with ninety nine percent of the developed world have played the game it does get awful sameish quite fast. However its almost always worth a quick five minute blast before boredom or frustration sets in. Pondering the phenomenon then lets look at what it does right. Firstly its obvious its polished, graphics are good and more importantly distinctive, sound is awesome with some hilarious effects, my favorite being the pig snuffles and levels are well designed in that it is always possible to achieve your three stars but never ever easy or impossible. Casual gamers love it for its cute simplicity, for hardcorers theres the challenge of getting 3 stars on every level and Rovio clearly shows their knowledge of what makes gamers tick by throwing in loads of hidden Easter eggs. Another big factor is the care that they throw behind it. Update after update in the format of  seasonal goodness like Christmas and Halloween editions make the game always seem new and contemporary. Then of course theres a whole new game in the form of Rio. I’m sure all this constant development cuts into their budget but its also been a major factor behind the rise and rise of this game. However thats  only the  obvious factors AB also has some nifty psychological hooks which make it so addictive. Lets save that for another post though as the discussion could get kinda heavy. So if youre not a bird addict now you know what some of the hype is and hopefully if youre a developer you will learn from them birds to make us gamers some new future treats.

gametrender.webs.com 

Really free?

Theres many ways of getting our games fix, thankfully many of them free. But is free really all its cracked up to be? Surely you sat free can’t be such a bad thing? But if you look at the fact that we have so many games to play and a limited amount of hours in the day then the fact that free and possibly low quality games are cluttering up our phones memories and our precious gaming time is surely a bad thing. Of course there are many good free games out there, thats why we need services like Gametrender to help us to find them. Stay tuned for later articles that will explore other ways in which games can be made that are high quality but don’t necessarily cost us anything.

That's more like it

Gametrender is in the business of putting top quality apps in the hands of gamers so it gives a warm glow when we see the big companies making some effort. Sony is welcoming all developers for xperia play from the largest to the smallest to submit their games to their website. If the games meet Sonys criteria they will feature them on their website and through various other public means. Good for you Sony getting behind the developers and getting us access to more games. And along those lines if youre a developer reading this then by all means get hold of us and initially through the blog and later the website we can help expose your games. android games

Take a good thing?

Back in days of yore when phones seemed to do little more than make cracky calls the seeds were laid for the multi million gaming industry of the future. Who can forget  Snake? But have we improved on this? Hd graphics, million color uber pixel screens and always on connectivity but have we yet made anything mobile as maddeningly addictive as Snake and its ilk? Debate! android games

Xperiences with Gameloft customer support

Back in the day you’d go into a shop and physically choose your item. Hold it in your hand, weigh it consider the pros and cons and then buy it.The retail model applied to physical video games too and shops were if not happy about it, still obliged to accept your returns. Now that we’ve moved away from physically handling apps and games for our phones surely a more robust system should be in place for returns, especially if the games are defective. In subsequent posts we’ll look into the various methods currently employed, but this post will mainly concentrate on experiences with Gameloft customer services. Now regular readers will have noticed Gameloft coming up fairly frequently in posts. They do churn out a lot of entertaining games on a frequent basis. However it seems that sometimes quality control is lacking and buggy versions get released. Of particular note on my Xperia play is Modern Combat 2 , delving into the forums it appears that nobody can get the game to work on their Xperia Play! So despite having a version optimised for the so called premier gaming phone, it doesn’t even work. Of course from my tone you can tell that I was one of the ones caught out. Firstly it must be pointed our that I’ve discovered two ways to pay for their games. Paypal transactions, which I’ve used and phone billing, I personally prefer the Paypal transactions as they give you a receipt number as proof of purchases if something goes wrong. It seems that to seek help it’s necessary to email Gameloft who, eventually, get back to you with a solution Which invariably seems to be a link to an alternative game.Although I suppose a refund would have been forthcoming if I had asked. All in all the process is straightforward but I have to point out some caveats: firstly the average resolution time takes about a week.Also disappointingly their website doesn’t seem to keep track of purchases very well, with none of my numerous purchases showing up resulting in Gameloft having to track down the purchases. Also even though all problems have been eventually resolved I would prefer if the problems didn’t exist in the first place and bugs were eliminated in the first place. android games

Free to Play Apps?

What you would be prepared to pay for in free to pay title? In one of my previous postings I spoke about the different models that games use to make money.Increasingly common are micro transactions in games which make gamers pay for amongst other things, virtual goods.So the question is what gamers are prepared to pay for. Amusingly there is a spoof game which exists on facebook called Cow Clicker. Why I mention Cow Clicker is the fact that you can part real money to buy something quite meaningless. You can pay to get a patterned cow which is fair enough, but as part of his social comment the developer had made it so you can pay to get cows with miniscule differences to each other. For example one model faces left, the other which you will pay for, faces right. And yet still people pay! At one stage before it was banned sellers did a roaring trade on ebay selling virtual currency for online games. It is write common in MMORPG games for there to be a pay for virtual currency which can be used to purchase virtual goods. Swords, armour, clothing, the sale of virtual goods is booming. But where do you draw the line. Reading the forums it seems that it is not unusual for consumers to sometimes spend hundreds of pounds on virtual goods. Would you pay for a right facing cow? gametrender@googlemail.com android games

Happy Annibirthday

The first time I saw it happen was on  Everquest, real world holidays started to be celebrated, Christmas being one of them, with snow, a virtual Santa and present giving occurring, all of course with a fantasy theme. Gaming has of course moved on since then, especially into the mobile realm. Many games now try to gather interest by having different editions for different occasions. Angry Birds does this particularly well with their Seasons edition. Halloween, Christmas and even Saint Patricks Day celebrations are themes in the game. It serves to make the game more immediately relevant and thus more interesting. Games for different occasions are definitely something that needs to be explored more, for example why can’t games give out special bonuses or prizes on the phone owners birthday. Should relevant newsworthy events be reflected in game updates, particularly story driven games? Also how much of a thought is given to the user interface of games, surely a game designed to be played on a morning commute should have controls designed around it. What about queues? Gamers often while away their time in long queues by playing games, do the developers tailor their user interfaces to reflect this? Apart from seasonal, holiday and event orientated gaming developers must become aware and savvy to the different types of situations their games are likely to be played in and design them with that in mind. Remember developers mobile games aren’t just for indoors on the couch: they are ubiquitous, ever present multi contextual commodities that can be played anywhere from thirty seconds to hours and for a gamer to get the most from their game these insights should help inform design. gametrender@googlemail.com android games